For example, in the Denver area (just to pick a random place), there's a laundromat for sale for ~260K, with gross revenue of 214K and an EBITDA of 120K, which would certainly satisfy your 3K/mo revenue requirements. Link here: https://www.loopnet.com/biz/Business-Opportunity/under-contr...
I'm not a laundromat owner, though I know a few of them, and they aren't 40 hour/week jobs. It's not totally risk free, but it's not a terrible job.
Consider opening a Crossfit Gym: https://www.loopnet.com/biz/Business-Opportunity/established...
Or a Dog Kennel/Spa: https://www.loopnet.com/biz/Business-Opportunity/successful-...
I think a lot of us think that tech is the only or best way to make a bunch of money, but Hacker News is also a place of bustling entrepreneurship and starting your own business doesn't have to mean starting a SaaS company. You could write your own pet kennel reservation software, for example, and then dogfood it (ha!) until you feel comfortable spinning it out into software that can be sold to other pet kennels around the country/world.
I have no idea if this is useful to you, but I think it's a fun idea. I'm considering doing something similar to this myself, when my current job ends.
Good luck!
I'd just live off of the $260K (plus the interest I'd make having it in tbills) until I could draw SS (which is only about 5 years out). In reality, that's probably what I'll do (though I don't have $260K outside of retirement accounts - more like $150K).
Anyway, good luck. Hope you figure something out. :)
$3k/month, after taxes?
> I looked for a tech job for the first half of this year without any luck and I'm really tired of the whole tech interview process so now I'm starting to wonder about other ways of bringing in money.
I'm not sure if I'd ask this general advice question here. This isn't Reddit. HN is basically a "tech" board. Nothing says it needs to be exclusively that but I'd be surprised if you get good general answers from non-tech people.
Go wait tables? Go get a job that pays $3k/mo net?
"What would you do to bring in $3k/mo?"
I'd work. It isn't realistic/easy to snap your fingers and find an unturned corner in the market where you can just "start a business". You aren't going to Etsy jewelry/sell t-shirts/think of an app nobody else has/start a YouTube channel/Twitch stream/daytrade your way to $3k/mo net of taxes easily.
I'm not retired yet but I'm starting a series of many small projects/businesses on the side now, so that with some consistent attention and effort over time, one or more of them can grow into a serious thing by the time I'm ready to hand in my ~/.vimrc for good. My goal is to embody the phrase, "it took me 10 years of work to become an overnight success."
Why would you need 3k a month if you're debt less though. If I were you I'd watch some yt on how to get by on a lot less, and then rephrase your query with a lower value.
Property taxes? Food other than ramen? Utilities (electricity, water, garbage, internet, cell phones, etc.)? Hobbies? Entertainment? Gasoline/car maintenance? Home repairs? Visits to see friends and family?
I would also look into contracting, freelance, or consulting work. It's not as easy as just going to work for someone, because you essentially have to set up a whole business around your work, which means you need tax planning, accounting, etc. However, right now most of the open jobs I see in my line of work are contracts or contract-to-hire. If you can stay organized and have excellent communication skills, running your own show can be a great way to go.
A big chunk of my network is either retired or about to at this point.
$3000 a month
= $750 per week
= $150 per day
= 2 hours per day (or a single 10 hour day per week) @ $75/hour.
As a bonus, $75/hour isn't particularly high for many fields.
You could look on Cofounderslab for someone looking for a tech cofounder and start a business together.
You could go into one of the in-demand job fields such as construction or truck driving.
Perhaps if you listed those, your question would be answered already or lead to a different question altogether…
If you're talking $3k/mo pre-tax, that's in the neighborhood of $18.75/hr
If you're "not quite old enough to draw Social Security", surely you know how to find a job ...no? You must have had one at some point - and loads of places all over are hiring all the time :)
Not sure about that. Isn't the standard deduction (married filing jointly) $24K now? $24K of that $36K is free of federal tax leaving only $12K to pay taxes on at a pretty low rate. If that's 20% then we're talking $2400 in taxes.
I don't think there's a single state where you can pay 40% (or even 30%) of a 60K salary in taxes. Maybe at 120K
but ... ~8% in FICA (SS & Medicare), >6% in state, and then ~20% in Fed income taxes (15% on the amount from ~8k-~30k, 25% to where I was salarywise) - comes out to right about 35% total
As for what I got back ... it was not much - maybe a couple hundred $$ from the state and feds combined
$35% is a good rule-of-thumb to cover several states - you may be lower, you may be higher ...but it is a good starting place to back-of-the-envelope think
Today, the Fed income tax rate on $60k is a little over 14% (single filer) - https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-...
Plus FICA @ 7.65% gets you to ~22%
Worst case state for $60k looks to be in the neighborhood of ~9% (NYS @ ~5% + NYC @ ~3.6%)
Which, in this case, does happen to get you to ~30-31% instead of 35% (and is all based on single and/or married filing separately, and nothing special you get to deduct)
All of which goes to say ... 35% is a reasonable approximation (do 30% if you want as a mildly-more-optimistic approximation) of take-home vs gross pay
And, of course, you can adjust this to your local state's rules easily enough - drop the personal income tax entirely in TN, for example
But FICA never goes away (SS drops after ~$160k, but Medicare's ~1.5% never does)
Neither does Fed income taxes
Of course, if you are married filing jointly, your standard deduction will cut your effective rate quite a bit. Add-on dependent children, and it goes even lower.
And every individual can figure this all out for themselves - but ballparking in the neighborhood of 1/3 of your income going to income and payroll taxes is not a bad place to start :)
If you're handy with home repairs/improvement, it's pretty easy to make money on the side, however 3k/month right off the bat sounds like a full time job.